Firewire 400 or eSata for HDV capture?

[Chris Borjis]

[Ryan Atkins] “Can Firewire 400 handle HDV and DV capture straight from the camera, or is eSata preferred?”

HDV captures over fw 400 (it was designed for that) same for DV.

never seen eSata interface on a camera or deck.

[Ryan Atkins]

Well, your correct. I meant to add in that my camera to computer connection is Firewire, but I have both eSata and Firewire available on my external. I wasn’t sure which method was best for going computer to external hard drive, if any.

[Michael Sacci]

If you go FW get FW800, it is backwards compatible, so you can connect both FW400 and FW800.

[David Roth weiss]

Sata is vastly superior — nearly eight times the throughput of Firewire 400. That means greatly enhanced realtime playback without rendering.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Ryan Atkins]

Very well then. Sata it is.

Thanks

[David Roth weiss]

Even better, get a two drive enclosure like this one and stripe the drives for twice the space and nearly twice the performance of a single drive. https://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/sata2ensm2e.html

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Ryan Atkins]

Have you encountered or heard of any issues with using the ExpressCard 34 cards in a MacBook Pro?

[David Roth weiss]

Yes, but not with the Firmtek. That’s why I suggested it.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Michael Sacci]

The biggest issue I have it the slot format itself, it is the worse design ever. You have to be careful with the moving anything that is connected to the card. Tension on the cable can push the card further in and then ejecting it. THis is true for and card and enclosure.

I have the Sonnet card and the firmtek enclosure and they work fine, in fact with the Sonnet express 34 eSata card you can connect up to 10 drives. Don’t get the full speed of a desktop because of the limitation of the port but just so you know it is available.

[Joel Peregrine]

8x’s as fast? Maybe by spec, but not in my tests with a single drive, which is the way most users have them set up. These are results from a new 320gb 2.5″ in an enclosure with fw and esata:

eSATA
Ext. Xfer Size Extended Read Extended Write

2 MBytes 49.606 MB/Sec 75.148 MB/Sec
3 MBytes 90.750 MB/Sec 75.632 MB/Sec
4 MBytes 91.741 MB/Sec 74.280 MB/Sec
5 MBytes 89.469 MB/Sec 73.439 MB/Sec
6 MBytes 95.430 MB/Sec 73.854 MB/Sec
7 MBytes 70.128 MB/Sec 68.089 MB/Sec
8 MBytes 50.820 MB/Sec 67.715 MB/Sec
9 MBytes 55.993 MB/Sec 64.673 MB/Sec
10 MBytes 62.203 MB/Sec 63.685 MB/Sec

FW800
Ext. Xfer Size Extended Read Extended Write

2 MBytes 45.354 MB/Sec 56.144 MB/Sec
3 MBytes 74.789 MB/Sec 56.527 MB/Sec
4 MBytes 76.737 MB/Sec 56.016 MB/Sec
5 MBytes 77.202 MB/Sec 56.115 MB/Sec
6 MBytes 77.986 MB/Sec 51.445 MB/Sec
7 MBytes 52.792 MB/Sec 54.490 MB/Sec
8 MBytes 59.809 MB/Sec 53.449 MB/Sec
9 MBytes 62.078 MB/Sec 53.915 MB/Sec
10 MBytes 59.929 MB/Sec 53.142 MB/Sec

FW400
Ext. Xfer Size Extended Read Extended Write

2 MBytes 32.601 MB/Sec 35.928 MB/Sec
3 MBytes 36.172 MB/Sec 36.460 MB/Sec
4 MBytes 36.044 MB/Sec 36.179 MB/Sec
5 MBytes 36.336 MB/Sec 36.194 MB/Sec
6 MBytes 36.406 MB/Sec 35.223 MB/Sec
7 MBytes 32.817 MB/Sec 36.238 MB/Sec
8 MBytes 34.640 MB/Sec 35.998 MB/Sec
9 MBytes 34.869 MB/Sec 35.927 MB/Sec
10 MBytes 35.503 MB/Sec 35.938 MB/Sec